


Working at half capacity

by obaewankenope (rexthranduil)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adam the first man (mentioned), Angels like Gabriel and co (mentioned), Angst, Demons like Satan and co (mentioned), Eve the first woman (mentioned), God (mentioned) - Freeform, M/M, Pre-Series, Sort Of, ineffable husbands, time skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 20:28:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19216945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexthranduil/pseuds/obaewankenope
Summary: Crowley knows only the love of the Almighty before he’s cast out for asking too many questions of Her. He didn’t do it on purpose—he didn’t do it to be mean, or cruel, or to start anything. He’d just wanted tounderstand.When he came into being, Aziraphale had been ever so confused by it all. The Almighty had given him a kind smile and then sent him off with his fellow newly-created-in-one-big-batch siblings, washing Her proverbial hands of responsibility for him. The ones who determined Aziraphale’s duties, what he was to do, what he was to learn, how he was to behave, were angels who were older than he. Angels he instinctively wished to gain the approval and love of.





	Working at half capacity

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr prompt from anonymous:  
>  _Aziraphale and Crowley probably never received any form of affection until they met each other._
> 
> I made a lot of angst in so short a thing and I am _proud_ of that fact.

**Crowley**

 

Crowley knows only the love of the Almighty before he’s cast out for asking too many questions of Her. He didn’t do it on purpose—he didn’t do it to be mean, or cruel, or to start anything. He’d just wanted to  _understand_.

That’s all Crowley has ever wanted really; to understand things. He doesn’t know how that offends God so much that She casts him out with angels who hated humanity, hated not having the earth to call their own too, but, well, obviously Crowley isn’t going to know is he? That’s too much to ask for, obviously.

The Fall is… Crowley would love to forget it but he  _can’t_. It’s seared into him. The kind of pain and agony that he hadn’t even known it was possible to feel. Burning yourself with a hot pan on the stove paled in comparison to the burning agony of falling. Every nerve, every cell, every feather on wings made of every colour in existence,  _burning_.

What were once full of possibility drained until only absence remained. White to black. Angel to demon.

Hell is painful to the touch. His awareness of this place full of screaming and pain and suffering bleeding into every neuron in his brain, spreads until there’s nothing left untouched by it, until its all Crowley knows anymore.

God’s love is forgotten because it hurts too much to recall.

 

Eden is, in a word, lovely. It’s bright, warm, comfortable, full of life and potential. It’s the perfect place for sin to be born.

The sin of knowledge.

Crowley harbours a small seed of resentment towards Eve for being offered understanding, Adam too. Crowley hadn’t even got as far as an offer, just a firm rejection and ejection from the only home he’d ever known.

Sure, perhaps he hadn’t quite  _fit_  there—too curious and questioning and wanting to understand to fall quietly into line, but still. It had been  _home_.

Watching the knowledge, the understanding blossom in Adam and Eve’s eyes, seeing it for himself, makes Crowley  _ache_. He advices them to go, to leave Eden, look beyond what God demands of them, be more.

Crowley doesn’t know if he’s doing the right thing or the wrong one and he doesn’t  _care_. The bitter envy he feels for the two humans—so young, so new, so, so innocent—is drowned by the overwhelming wish that someone had cared about him and given him a  _choice_.

But choices were for humans, not for angels.

Or demons.

 

The angel standing atop the wall of Eden, staring out across the desert expanse beyond, is one Crowley doesn’t recognise. He could be a younger angel or just one who was in a different department to Crowley before—before.

He seems familiar however and Crowley wonders if he knew him in a different form. Its possible. Some demons changed how they appeared after the fall, only stands to reason some angels managed to do the same.

Although… Maybe that would fall under rebellious behaviour so perhaps not.

Doesn’t have much of a sense of humour—or, at least, isn’t all that good at noticing sarcasm. There’s humour there. Bit buried under a lot of politeness and worrying about being a Proper Angel, but this Aziraphale isn’t intolerable.

Crowley finds himself slightly charmed by an angel when he thought he’d never be able to look at one of his celestial siblings without hating them for still having wings made of colour.

The realisation is reassuring.

He may be a demon but he’s not a monster.

Not yet at least.

 

* * *

 

**Aziraphale**

 

When he came into being, Aziraphale had been ever so confused by it all. The Almighty had given him a kind smile and then sent him off with his fellow newly-created-in-one-big-batch siblings, washing Her proverbial hands of responsibility for him. The ones who determined Aziraphale’s duties, what he was to do, what he was to learn, how he was to behave, were angels who were older than he. Angels he instinctively wished to gain the approval and love of.

Angels are made to love, after all. And loving each other is ingrained in their very being.

But it is a lot harder to love those around you when they do not appreciate you. It is harder to feel the same amount of love when they dismiss you. It is hardest of all not to start to hate yourself in lieu of hating them.

Aziraphale is not able to stop himself from the last of those, even if it is tempered by his faith in the Almighty and Her Plan which must include Aziraphale—why would he exist if it didn’t? Of course Aziraphale matters.

Life is full of tests, however, and loving his siblings is just another test.

Obviously.

Right?

 

The Rebellion. The Fall. God ejecting Her children who rebelled from heaven. Casting them out into the newly created depths of hell.

Aziraphale witnessed it all. He fought in it. He fought for heaven. And the entire time his heart broke.

These were his siblings. They were his family. This isn’t how family is supposed to be. Rejecting each other. Casting one another out. A parent throwing away disobedient children. The obedient children remaining. The separation like a lost limb.

It hurts.

It hurts so,  _so much._

Aziraphale feels like he’s breaking throughout it all and in the years following. Heaven feels strangely bereft, lacking in ways Aziraphale has ever felt it to be.

Heaven is meant to be full of angels, not working at half capacity.

That hurts too.

 

 

Years and years of his siblings being the way they are toward him leaves Aziraphale wary of new orders sending him away from heaven to guard Eden’s eastern gate. It’s not right, distrusting his siblings but…

Aziraphale cannot help how he feels, can he?

Eden is quite beautiful. It has a weight to it that heaven lacks. The physics, probably. Lush foliage, blazing blue sky with a golden sun, soft breeze and all that could be desired by the beginnings of Her new children.

Aziraphale finds them quite charming, Adam and Eve. They’re so very young, fresh, and innocent in ways that Aziraphale feels like heaven has lost over the years. It’s no hardship at all to spend time with them.

It’s even less of a hardship when he finds them tunnelling out of Eden to hand them his flaming sword and hurry them along.

God isn’t watching now, but She may come looking by the time the sun goes down. Adam and Eve need to be far, far away from Eden before then. Aziraphale Knows it like he Knows his wings are white.

It’s innate.

 

Standing on the top of Eden’s wall, Aziraphale watches Adam and Eve make their way across the sand. There are other places beside Eden where they can live. God didn’t make earth bereft of life—quite the opposite in fact. Eden was the only place where the human race would be safe from all manner of dangers however.

Aziraphale does hope he hasn’t sent them to their deaths. He couldn’t live with himself if he has.

A soft sound catches his attention, drawing it from the humans to his side just in time to see a serpent become a demon with black wings unfurled.

Why Adam and Eve wished to leave the Garden is explained then and there, by the presence of a fallen sibling.

One Aziraphale doesn’t recognise but feels as though he should.

Even with the sarcasm the demon eludes and the humour that isn’t quite to Aziraphale’s taste, he finds himself eating up the attention from—"Crawley"—the demon because, for all that he’s a demon, he’s also remarkably  _nice_.

This is probably the only encounter Aziraphale will ever have with Crawley and he should be pleased about that fact, he should. He is.

He isn’t.

How sad is it, he can’t help but think, later on when he and the demon have gone their separate ways, that he almost wishes he could spend more time with Crawley than with his angelic siblings?

To find more solace in a demon than an angel.

Perhaps Aziraphale’s superiors were correct. Perhaps Aziraphale really is a poor excuse for an angel.

But perhaps this Crawley is a poor excuse for a demon too?

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments ~~screaming~~ sustain me :)


End file.
